She had become melancholy in her rejection and stayed in her room after the rousing antics wore down in menace, laying in bed mostly or staring out the frosted window of her attic room into the courtyard. During the day she viewed the piling snow and dusty drifts, at night, the blackness penetrated by untold numbers of fiery points.

Having composed a handful of poems over the weeks those distant urges swelled in her again, the kinds of feelings that recalled the windswept grasses along the Atlantic, the smell of seawater that teased of travels; her Father, pressing her on her studies, her saintly Mother and the life she no longer knew. Their love and comforting presence vanished from her, the security of her home, lost.

Dew was confused with Illinois for a multitude of reasons. To begin, Illinois had projected all her fears of isolation onto the young London woman and was desperate for her companionship. With time, this desperation was sexualized and Illinois came onto Dew, drunkenly, as they sat before a fire one evening, camping. This befuddled Dew more so because she was inclined neither towards men or women. She hadn’t noticed, having spent her whole life mostly isolated and in the wildernesses surrounding the family town, that she had not desired the kind of companionship Illinois, sometimes with a furious approach, wanted. Illinois had been engaged, had sought out the love of a man marriage provides when she was Carolyne, but having been destroyed and reborn there was a great wall that blocked out a place for anybody except Dew, whom she had grown to trust and love, to desire so completely that lines she could never have dreamed of crossing only years before were now obliterated in her obsession with the auburn haired woman.

“You see the storm coming, don’t you?” Dew asked Illinois. Illinois hears her, listens too, as Dew continues “but you are blind. You stand in front of disaster having no clue of the imminent destruction, like a maiden before the hungry maw of a steam engine, trouble barreling down the track.”

The remark of a steam engine drew Illinois into a meditation and she recalled the ramp leading to the door of the freight car. How long each footstep took, coerced, being dragged against her want, the sound of the wood creaking, the metal grinding, into a dark place where she did not know or have any expectation that she’d return.

It was the past, she told herself and Dew knew nothing of it, or she would not be so cruel, accidentally, but Illinois also knew how to answer and so she said, “I dream of loving and of being loved, simply that.”

Illinois replied succinctly in that manner she excelled at and which made others think her smarter than she might have been, but her thoughts betrayed the simplicity of her consideration. The night, she reckoned silently, became her favorite kind of loneliness, her confinement surrendered to the stars. She thought herself like rendered fat, a kind of sizzling away of that which could be lost, should be lost, and she derived pride from this despite the scoldings that her afflictions were rooted in delusion. During the day she was ill-tempered and stressed, pressed to recall her wounds, the losses that weighed her down but at twilight the locked vault of the cosmos opened and her heart flies away into that deep space forever accommodating.

She recalled as she sat nursing her drink, an old eastern traveller saying, “the ancients believed that the spirit never ceases to exist, it never dies. In fact, there isn’t even a word for death in our language” he stated proudly to the tired Illinois. “They would instead go West. The life force following the same path as the sun and the stars into a new journey, becoming, again, part of the universe. The cycle will never end, always in perfect balance.” 

‘West,’ she chuckled to herself. Her beliefs were not the same, how could they be, they were too personal for her to simply agree with another, but she couldn’t help noticing it stuck a chord in her. With some beautiful continuity in the events of her life, this life, everything ends up going West.  

Discipline was leaving her behind. She had given all her power away, she hadn’t even known it was hers, that she could retain it, or that it was necessary. The blight of confusion on her was too much. This meant she drank, large quantities and pressed at those close to her, loving her, as much as possible, to ensure their bond was true. She felt outside of herself, she knew what she was doing and loathed herself more, if it were possible. All she had carried, the wounds ever deep and biting into her even these years later. They would never heal and while she lived it was a trial to love her. When her eyes darkened, even her loves scarcely knew how to take cover, but she had such a comprehensive, deep and broad perspective of the world that to speak with her for 5 minutes made you realize, that whatever her failings were, it was only a facade.

You can appear unaccomplished but reveal tremendous wealth in your ideas when the other patiently seeks out that worth and Illinois’ value in this life could be profoundly exhilarating, she only made it, the discovery of her, difficult as though more than anything in the world, wealth, fame, accomplishment, she sought out only genuine connection.

“Who can handle you!?” Dew would often state, sometimes humorously, other times exasperated from frustration with the manner Illinois came and went.

Then there was the deception, the broken vessel of her intentions and the manner she embellished her perspectives with lengthy narratives that served only to confound and perplex the listener enough to avoid saying anything. She had wandered, alone, haunted by her new found station and so created worlds that hid those afflictions and she believed them, and more than anything else she defended herself. When it appeared to Dew that Illinois had lied it meant the possible termination of their relationship. Illinois was too much, Dew said, she couldn’t handle not knowing, not trusting that the person before her was real.

Illinois shuddered with fear and begged her not to leave, crying, grabbing at Dew’s feet to keep her from leaving the room and in those moments, Dew could only feel compassion for this person who brought so much into their lives. She was fierce with loyalty, her skills sometimes seemed otherworldly, and yet she was incredulously fearful of abandonment and rejection. She was hurt and broken in ways that would remain hidden and Dew decided she could not relinquish her to that suffering, alone.